When Penn State Air Force ROTC (AFROTC) cadets were told to pack their bags for an overnight trip to an unknown destination on Friday, they expected an ordinary bus ride.

But as they watched a Black Hawk helicopter descend on a grassy hill behind the Bryce Jordan Center that afternoon, they realized this excursion would be far from ordinary.

The helicopter, owned and operated by the Pennsylvania Air National Guard, flew more than 90 AFROTC cadets to the Stone Valley Recreation Area, a university-owned park, for a mock deployment.

After a brief instruction session from a Black Hawk pilot, the first squad of cadets climbed into the 20,000-pound aircraft for the 17-mile flight to Stone Valley.

"The ride was outstanding," Zach Crampton (junior-earth sciences) said. "I really wish they would've told us it was OK to bring a camera, because we got some real great views."

During the 15-minute ride, the pilot flew the cadets over the Penn State campus and "pulled some G's" before dropping them off, Crampton said.

The aircraft, which seats up to 11 fully equipped troops, made nine trips to and from Stone Valley before heading back to its base at Fort Indiantown Gap.

David Cox (senior-information sciences and technology), an AFROTC wing commander who helped organize the mock deployment, said he wanted his fellow cadets to get some active duty experience before the semester is over.

"We really wanted to get them outside for a little bit because we've already done a lot of classroom training," Cox said.

Cox said he and several other selected cadets had been planning the mock deployment since the beginning of the semester, and that securing a ride on the Black Hawk was a matter of "being in the right place at the right time."

Cox went to Christopher Lucia (junior-civil engineering), whose father is a Black Hawk instructor pilot for the Pennsylvania Air National Guard, to reserve a ride on the helicopter.

Although his father is a helicopter pilot, this was only Lucia's second Black Hawk ride.

"It was still pretty exciting," Lucia said. "We got to fly over the stadium and all over campus before landing. It was cool to see everything from that high."

After arriving at the park, the cadets were given the assignment of constructing an airstrip, Lucia said. The squads worked in rotation to establish a base and secure its perimeters before returning to campus on Saturday morning.

Crampton said while he has completed mock operations with AFROTC in previous semesters, Friday's trip was his most thrilling.

"This one definitely topped anything we have ever done before," he said.